My daughter's elementary school was 50% free/reduced lunch, which means under the Federal poverty level. So the school served both hot breakfast and lunch. The teachers all had cereal bars, graham crackers, that sort of thing right in the classroom (unheard of in my day!). However, the principal made a point of saying that the worst offenders for not feeding their kids breakfast were the busy two-parent working families who were just too rushed in the morning to get any food down their kids. From the school's point of view, those kids are not going to score high on standardized tests if they're on an empty stomach, and it is ALL about those tests because that's your funding.

I think the upshot is that you don't need to be scraping by to make nutrition a low priority in your household.

I believe that is the biggest problem. Its easy to stop at McDonalds and grab a egg mcmuffin or to order pizza or grab whatever on the way home for supper. Its a matter of planning, if mornings are too rushed, then set a bowl out with cereal in it the night before, pour milk in the morning. Get to bed at a decent time and wake up early enough to get the children and yourself off, its a matter of responsibility and learning how to make nutrition an important part of your family's life. Those types of food may go a long way, however their lives won't, doesn't make sense.

What amazes me the most about the show, is that they didn't mention that any of the parents were concerned about the food that is being served to the children. I can't imagine my 5 yr old great nephew, getting up, brushing his teeth, getting ready for school, getting on a bus, travelling 30 min's, getting to school, play in the school yard, bell rings, everyone inside, prayers, national anthem whatever, then eat breakfast?

03-28-2010, 05:22 PM

coltnlasma

Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miss Scarlet;3864580;

I find it nearly impossible to believe that kids just don't get ANY food except for at school. How the heck to they survive during the Summer? Or on weekends. And what are the parents doing for food?

I don't know the particulars of how they get to that point, but there really are kids in this situation. Schools in my area send home food packages for certain kids to get them through long weekends/holidays. I'm not sure how they are covered through the summer. It's a volunteer effort in a rural community - there are no jobs or programs to be justified. Along the same lines, it's pretty common for teachers to personally provide for students or for principals to secretly pay a family's utilities... there's probably a lot more kids in need out there than we realize.

03-28-2010, 05:38 PM

Bearcata

Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

I worked in a school's psych dept one summer while in college and I had to file all these reports. Many teachers had a supply of nappies in their desk for all the young kids that came to class with full diapers. Many of these kids were put on the bus dirty and unfed and this was in town of a 250,000 people in industrial Pennsylvania.

03-28-2010, 09:08 PM

Maybaybie

Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

One thing I haven't read here is about the amount of food that was being thrown out and what was being done with it. When I was a kid (back in the 70's before recycling was 'cool') we had two trash cans in the lunch room. One was where paper (napkins, milk carton's etc) was thrown and the other was only for uneaten food and the local pig farmers would come take it away daily to feed their animals. I can't believe they wouldn't compost it or give it to a local farmer instead of putting the trash and food in the same can and throwing it away.

03-28-2010, 09:29 PM

sweetpea

Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

Maybaybie I was also horrified to see those UNOPENED cartons of milk and untouched whole apples going in the trash. There must be another way to deal with these leftovers than to throw them in the landfill. At my daughter's school they compost, and the grade 4 classes (my daughter's class) are responsible for going to each classroom and collecting the containers with fruit/veggie scraps and then taking it out to the composter. Plus, don't they recycle? I saw plastic juice containers being thrown in there. Surely there must be a program to recycle those? I know you can return them to a bottle depot here in BC for money. My girls help me take them back and sort them, and they get to keep the extra cash as spending $$.

The WASTE of food, of compostable materials, of recycling materials was astonishing.

I'm amazed at how much this show has impacted me. I've spend a lot of time today talking about it with friends and family.

03-28-2010, 09:35 PM

Critical

Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

Re: recycling and composting - If they're feeding the kids crap like that, I doubt they care about the environment either. All the apples and milk going into the trash untouched was just sickening. I can't believe none of the adults said anything. Don't they have lunchroom monitors?

03-28-2010, 09:53 PM

Bonbonlover

Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

It was amazing that the superintendent (???) that it was such a great novel idea Jamie had to walk around and help the kids. At my kids school the teachers on lunch duty would walk around and make sure the kids were eating. "oh oh eat that 1/2 sandwich before you can be excused" ... they always will eat it... but kids are short sited -- they don't realize that if you don't eat now, they will be really hungry in 20 minutes. That school should know that.

03-29-2010, 08:30 PM

Miss Scarlet

Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maybaybie;3864728;

One thing I haven't read here is about the amount of food that was being thrown out and what was being done with it. When I was a kid (back in the 70's before recycling was 'cool') we had two trash cans in the lunch room. One was where paper (napkins, milk carton's etc) was thrown and the other was only for uneaten food and the local pig farmers would come take it away daily to feed their animals. I can't believe they wouldn't compost it or give it to a local farmer instead of putting the trash and food in the same can and throwing it away.

This part didn't surprise me all that much. I'm unfortunately fully aware of the phenomenal waste of food in our society.
I had a sister-in-law who absolutely refused to serve any type of leftovers, even leftover roast or turkey. At the end of dinner she would dump all leftovers in the trash. I was appalled & often considered asking her to give them to me, but didn't have the guts to ask. This was not a wealthy family either, just very picky. I have no idea what she was thinking.
Also, the local grocery stores used to give away all bakery goods after a few days, & restaurants gave away food from the previous day, but the health department came down against them & now they have to totally destroy them & put them in LOCKED dumpsters. What a waste!

03-30-2010, 12:34 AM

Allie

Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

Quote:

Originally Posted by sweetpea;3864748;

Maybaybie I was also horrified to see those UNOPENED cartons of milk and untouched whole apples going in the trash.

Kids can have a way of taking care of their own. I know of one school to where the kids put unopened milk cartons, ect ON TOP or next to the trash containers. If someone is hungry still, they just go take one. No one sees, no one teases, no one has to ask.

Without community programs and help, these kids CAN go hungry over the weekend/breaks/summer vacation. Some schools have backpack programs to where the kids take home a backpack full of food. Others can have kids help out at the cafeteria and get food to take home.

And as for lunchroom monitors, many schools are having to cut down on funding for such things (usually the staff assistants/paraeducators do that). And they also have to deal with behavior and overcrowding.

03-30-2010, 01:00 PM

GuardianAngel

Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

Recycling is another subject that I believe is a matter of not knowing how important it is to recycle. We have a blue box system for can's plastics etc and a grey box for paper products, they alternate picking them up, one week blue, one week grey etc. We also have a green bin for food waste which is pickd up every week. We are only allowed two bags of garbage per week, if you have more, you pay $1.00 per bag with a special tag you purchase before hand. My garbage bag is 1/4 full, sometimes I wait till the following week just to have a full bag because everything gets recycled. It was awful to see all that food, alot of it untouched, all dumped into one big garbage. They should be teaching and educating the students all about recycling, about conserving etc.

For those who are interested, thanks to Kiptyn (former bachelor contestant) provided this link in his tweet.